Altuzarra / Fall 2013 RTW

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The Manhattan fall runways of the city’s brightest young things seem to have been invaded by a race of Amazonian superheroines, with broad shoulders and nipped-in waists that evoke an eighties Mugler-esque vision of the comic-strip fifties.

Joseph Altuzarra’s vision was a strikingly bold and beautiful take on the look, his graphic clothes—in a restrained tonal palette—an exercise in silhouette and elaborate construction. “In the past, we’ve had these really fantastical journeys,” he explained backstage. “This season, the idea was going back to the street—to a purity of line. If you take away print and embroidery, you have to challenge yourself a bit more on the cut.”

To emphasize that cut, Altuzarra used bonded fabrics with a scuba hand, and a leatherette that he admired for its uncrushable, pristine perfection. He also avoided topstitching, so that the parabolic seams that eddied round the body of his curvaceous suits and dresses left the surfaces as smooth as possible.

Altuzarra opened his show with what he dubbed “fetishized corporate uniforms,” shapely eighties power-suit jackets with important shoulders, tiny waists, peplums padded out to New Look dimensions, and buttons as big and reflective as the mirror in a compact. Tiny little boleros that resembled chopped-off trench coats or biker jackets made the shoulder line even more emphatic.

Simpler jersey pieces, meanwhile, were weighted with steel stud trim at the hems and had an echo of early Alaïa to them, and there was a crazy glamour to the black-and-white fox, pieced to resemble skunk, that was used for boxy coats or cartoonishly overscaled mittens.

Mods met Teddy Girls in the clash of the “biker jacket” dresses worn with black-and-white-check ankle boots, but that Mugler-esque va-va-voom returned for the finale pieces, with mink used to outline a portrait neckline, and pattern blocks of black and white to emphasize the body divine.